Those without. I envy them. I envy them because while they may hunger more, they hunger for less. They would be happy with even half of what I have, and yet am I happy with half of what I have? Am I even happy with what I have now?
Tough circumstance has humbled them, they are always quite loud. They laugh more loudly than we do. And loudly do they share in their disgust for our opulence, our greed. In return, we despise them right back because they are right about our greed. They know of our greed oh so well. What we know is that we are the embodiment of their greed. They may never know that they are but the germ of our greed, that we are the graduated poor.
We hope for more just as they hope for more, the only true mark of poverty. Poverty isn't a description it is a disposition. If a rich man had but one orange and one glass of water, he would feel blessed to have a meal, but those of us in poverty live for tomorrow's breakfast, next week's brunch, and the endless steak dinners. Make no mistake, poverty is in us all, but only some of us deserve to lay claim to it. The hungry deserve to be poor, deserve to want more, as in their case want and need are in harmony. But we who want for the sake of want, we have rights to neither our monetary affluence nor spiritual poverty. We want for the sake of want and create new needs for the sake of need to balance the scale. Then we wonder why instead of balance, our scales teeter evermore violently with our added pressures.
Yes, I envy them, the poor. I am trapped, bound by my first world problems my eyes are green with this envy. I envy them so much I want them all to be gone, yes I want them all gone. I want all of the poor to be rich like me, only then will my eyes change colour. As the witch doctor fights poison with poison I will fight green with green. I think even the poor deserve a chance, a real one. Sitting behind the reserved seats tonight my date and I overheard from the film's press agent that the two young boys who played the lead actors from the slums of Mumbai were in fact just poor slum kids from Mumbai. The one who sold balloons for a living in the film did exactly that before the lights were on and likely still does today. The press agent is starting a charity to get those kids an education but they simply don't want it. Only reinforcing for me that there is a deeper level of poverty than monetary, and also a deeper level of affluence. There's something they have that we can't see in all our desire for them to have more, sometimes greed is externalized and nicknamed philanthropy. All the same, what they have lost is hope, and that you can never have enough of. When it comes to hope, the rich and the poor alike could afford to be greedier.
Perhaps this is where I can help.
Tough circumstance has humbled them, they are always quite loud. They laugh more loudly than we do. And loudly do they share in their disgust for our opulence, our greed. In return, we despise them right back because they are right about our greed. They know of our greed oh so well. What we know is that we are the embodiment of their greed. They may never know that they are but the germ of our greed, that we are the graduated poor.
We hope for more just as they hope for more, the only true mark of poverty. Poverty isn't a description it is a disposition. If a rich man had but one orange and one glass of water, he would feel blessed to have a meal, but those of us in poverty live for tomorrow's breakfast, next week's brunch, and the endless steak dinners. Make no mistake, poverty is in us all, but only some of us deserve to lay claim to it. The hungry deserve to be poor, deserve to want more, as in their case want and need are in harmony. But we who want for the sake of want, we have rights to neither our monetary affluence nor spiritual poverty. We want for the sake of want and create new needs for the sake of need to balance the scale. Then we wonder why instead of balance, our scales teeter evermore violently with our added pressures.
Yes, I envy them, the poor. I am trapped, bound by my first world problems my eyes are green with this envy. I envy them so much I want them all to be gone, yes I want them all gone. I want all of the poor to be rich like me, only then will my eyes change colour. As the witch doctor fights poison with poison I will fight green with green. I think even the poor deserve a chance, a real one. Sitting behind the reserved seats tonight my date and I overheard from the film's press agent that the two young boys who played the lead actors from the slums of Mumbai were in fact just poor slum kids from Mumbai. The one who sold balloons for a living in the film did exactly that before the lights were on and likely still does today. The press agent is starting a charity to get those kids an education but they simply don't want it. Only reinforcing for me that there is a deeper level of poverty than monetary, and also a deeper level of affluence. There's something they have that we can't see in all our desire for them to have more, sometimes greed is externalized and nicknamed philanthropy. All the same, what they have lost is hope, and that you can never have enough of. When it comes to hope, the rich and the poor alike could afford to be greedier.
Perhaps this is where I can help.
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